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He sighed. “Ronnie, you’re making me tired. I’ve had a long day. If you interrupt me every time I speak, we’ll be up until the roosters start. And they’ll be starting in about two hours.”
“That’s before dawn.”
“Welcome to the ranch.”
She went back to her burger, trying to ignore the company and the fact that the way he was treating her, though offensive, was having a fucked-up effect. She was sure if—no when—he hurt her, it would snap her back to reality, but for now, his low voice, good looks, and semi-barbaric ways were sending her spiraling back into fantasy world.
“You’ll have chores here. You’ll also be cooking for me and the guys. You’ll keep the house tidy, and you’ll tend to the garden in the backyard. We don’t sell the produce; it’s just for us. We don’t eat a lot from the grocery store, some snack foods here and there and soft drinks. Most of our meat, eggs, and dairy comes from here or our neighbors and our produce comes from the garden. The growing season is short so we also have a pretty big greenhouse. Any questions?”
“I’m not going to be your happy domestic slave. I don’t live to serve men.” In real life she had barely been able to stand Joe as her boss at the ad agency. And she’d never called Joesir. Her first two years at the agency it had been a woman, but then she’d run off to Australia with her boyfriend. The fact that Veronica would be the only woman here, waiting on them all hand and foot, caused an indignant rebellion to rise up in her. She didn’t know how long she could play nice with this psycho.
“All right, get in the truck. I’ll take you back to the city and you can die in a ditch or turn to prostitution and drugs to dull the horror of it all.”
Would he really take her back to the city? If he meant it, she wanted to take the offer and get away, but his forecast of prostitution and drugs felt too true and close to the mark to take the bait. It might not be any better out there.
“Don’tyouintend to use me like that?”
“When the time is right, and I feel you’re ready to be a good slut, absolutely.”
She cringed at the way he spoke to her, rough and calloused like his hands. “What you’ve done and what you obviously plan to do is wrong.”
“It’s wrong to feed you and give you shelter and productive work?”
“That’s not what you’re doing.”
“Isn’t it?” He took his plate to the sink. “See you in the morning, princess.”
Veronica was left alone in the kitchen with only the grandfather clock in the other room for company. She couldn’t believe he’d left her unattended. Of course she wasn’t going to run away without her shoes, but there had to be shoes somewhere in this house. Or a phone.
She scanned the kitchen, but all she found was a place where a phone used to hang on the wall. Searching the lower level didn’t produce a phone either. She winced every time she stepped on the wrong wooden board, causing a loud creak to sound throughout the house. Luke leaned over the upstairs railing.
“If you’re looking for a phone, I only have a cell, and it’s locked in my safe in the bedroom.”
So much for that, but she still had the other plan. She’d have to wait until he fell asleep. Even as she thought it, the prospect of actually making it back to New York sounded awful. So far he hadn’t harmed her. What would be her fate in the city with such limited resources? Though by this point she could stand the humiliation of going back to Joe and begging for her job back, if the job still existed. She could see a credit counselor and get her life back on track.
If the slow downward spiral from her penthouse to the apartment with the ugly brick view hadn’t changed her thinking, the past week of genuine fear for her ability to survive much longer the way she was going had. Jimmy Choos, Manolo Blahniks, and all the other frivolity seemed like just that.
She turned the knob of the door for the bedroom he’d assigned her. She was still confused that he hadn’t thrown her down and raped her.
A silver, antique full-length mirror stood in one corner of the room. The wallpaper was a light blue-and-white stripe. The furniture was painted white: a chest of drawers, a vanity, a night stand, and a full-sized bed. The carpet was light blue to match the wallpaper.
Veronica guessed there was hardwood underneath. For a crazy second she wondered if the carpet covered evidence of something gruesome. The closet, also white, was filled with sundresses for the summer, both long and short, as well as jeans and sweaters for the winter. But no shoes. Not a single pair of shoes was in the closet or under the bed. A chill went down her spine. If she’d had any doubts before, now she knew—Trish had been a prisoner as well.
3
Veronica waited until she heard the even hum of breath from her captor’s room that indicated he’d fallen into sleep. She prayed he was a deep sleeper. She was careful to stay close to the walls, so the hardwood wouldn’t creak. But when she turned the knob and pushed it open, the door gave a loud groan. He turned in his sleep, his breathing pattern interrupted. She stayed frozen in place, barely breathing until his pattern resumed. Then she crept into the room. If there were no women’s shoes, she wasn’t picky. Luke wore shoes. She’d just take some of his.
The moonlight came into his windows and fell over his face. Damn him and that face. That face had already made her hesitate a few times because something inside her responded to him. His mere presence did everything to her that her every sexual fantasy had done, but she was smart enough to know that the men she invented in her mind didn’t exist—couldn’t exist. She’d wasted enough time figuring that out.
She hadn’t been out with a man since college. The whole thing seemed pointless. Men slowed you down. They complained when your career was going better than theirs. They wanted you to pop out babies and make sacrifices for the kids because aren’t women all supposed to be maternal? Even in New York, you didn’t have to peel through too many layers in a man to find the caveman underneath. All the equality and supportiveness on the surface was window dressing.
After her second abortion, Veronica had found a doctor to tie her tubes. He’d been against it at first, but given his conservative leanings and her past history of killing the unborn, he’d decided it would be best if she didn’t get pregnant again. Smart doctor. Following that episode, she’d switched to women doctors for everything. Fuck the patronizing bastards who would give a man a vasectomy at nineteen but felt a woman couldn’t know her own mind until she’d already had children or turned thirty-five.
For a fleeting moment, Veronica wanted to go downstairs to the kitchen, take a knife, and lop off the dangerous part of Luke Granger. While he hadn’t hurt her...yet... she’d seen the perverted wheels in his head turning, and he’d admitted as much. She wasn’t going to think about the brief inappropriate wetness she’d felt between her legs as the wordsluthad tumbled out of his gorgeous mouth.
Perhaps worse than that, he’d decided she’d be free labor around the house. He didn’t seem intent on paying her. And even if he would, he hadn’t given her the choice to refuse the job.
His boots weren’t on the floor, so she went to check the closet. Behind the dark wooden doors, were his clothes and a large safe, but no shoes. Could he have put his boots in the safe? He’d put his cell in there. To be that meticulous... How many times had he done this? No matter what he said, Veronica didn’t believe he hadn’t killed Trish and whoever else had been before her. This behavior was too pathological.
